


wine and dine

by dreamlaunches



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, grumpy soo, sweet jognog, they are dumb and awkward god help them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 14:41:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17768702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlaunches/pseuds/dreamlaunches
Summary: “He is not my future lover,” Kyungsoo seethes through clenched teeth, busily hurrying to prep the chicken.“Yeah, sure,” the server laughs, “With him writing you love letters every week about your food?”--Kyungsoo, an aspiring young chef, starts getting notes on his food from a particularly fussy customer.





	wine and dine

 

It’s funny, the first time he gets a customer’s written complaint directly on the receipt. 

 

He definitely wasn’t expecting it. Especially since their small restaurant was usually only patronized by by-and-large pretty polite people. Usually if someone didn’t like his food they’d verbally tell off the waiter out front, and he’d eventually get the message through word of mouth. By then, the message would be thoroughly diluted down, and it wouldn’t feel so bad. Sometimes, he’d get a full plate of food back from the customer, and the implicit message would be understood. Still, even if people were just plain rude, he wouldn’t let it get to him. But something about this note seemed to hit a sensitive nerve in him. 

 

Kyungsoo rereads the scrawly message on the back of the tab again.

 

_To the chef,_

 

_Thank you for the meal._

_Maybe you should go lighter on the rosemary in the future._

_The marinade was too overpowering. A little off-putting._

 

_From, J._

 

To be perfectly honest, Kyungsoo didn’t know what to make of this… complaint, whatever it was. It was both complimentary and critical, he supposes. But he’s left wondering if the first sentence was just to be polite. The second part, truth be told, made his heart sink a little. Culinary school taught him that criticism was always an opportunity to learn something new, but deep down he was always still sensitive to it. 

 

It’s not like he prepared this person’s dish, a lamb roast, particularly badly in comparison to his previous ones, too. And no one seemed to find the dish in general to be particularly problematic in its recipe either. It’s been on the menu for years, and Kyungsoo’s been in the kitchen making it for almost eight months straight now. Everyone has different taste buds, he figures, so he decides to brush it off as a one-off thing. Multiple stews and pastas were still waiting for his hand’s finishing touches, and he couldn’t just keep the other customers waiting. He gets back to work, and the rest of the day passes without incident. 

 

Later that night after he returns home and changes out of his work clothes, he finds the note again in his back pocket, still neatly folded. He thinks about the J that the sender signed off with. There are too many names it could possibly stand for, and he doesn’t even know if it came from a man or a woman. How old could J even be? 

 

These were silly thoughts. In all likelihood, he would never hear from J again. Sighing, he crumples the receipt up and tosses it into his bedside trash can.   

 

—

 

Only three days pass before the next time he receives word that the same customer dropped by and left another note on the back of his receipt. This time, Kyungsoo feels less disappointed in himself and a little more — just slightly annoyed at the sender. 

 

His female coworker handed him the receipt earlier, teasing him that he’s got a secret admirer. Kyungsoo gets even more irritated at this. What kind of secret admirer just sends weirdly patronizing notes telling the object of their affections that they’ve got a problem with their food? He unfolds the receipt again, recognizing the messy chicken scratch for handwriting as being the same one from last time. 

 

_Hi,_

 

_I’m sorry my note was a little mean last time, the waiter told me._

_This time, the curry you made me was very good. If a little bit too spicy._

_Did you use ripened peppers?_

_I have a sensitive tongue so, next time,_

 

And the note was cut off from there. He didn’t even have room to sign off with the letter J, like in the one from three days ago. Well, the receipt was tiny anyways, making it unlikely for anyone to write more than five sentences on it. J must’ve been in a hurry, or the more likely scenario — they’ve got no sense of allocating space. He wonders, again, what kind of person would do this, twice and to the same person no less. The servers up front say that the sender is a man, and that he's young, handsome, and tall. That he has really good bone structure, too. Perhaps they’re screwing around with Kyungsoo. That’s not an unlikely scenario, given they all like to treat him like a kid and tease him by fluffing his hair, tying the medium-length strands up with rubber bands whenever he’s off on break. _Kyungsoo-ya,_ they would coo, _come play mafia with us. You don’t know how to play? We’ll teach you…_

 

To which Kyungsoo would respond with a resounding no, because he was a professional, goddamnit. The only bone structure he should care about is that of the beef he makes bone broth with. And work breaks should be spent enjoying the food that the better chefs sometimes cooked up for them, not fooling around with games. His grumpy temperament only serves to amuse his coworkers further. They affectionately call him their little cute bitter melon: quite bitter when raw, but really quite mellow and soft when heated up. Kyungsoo on the other hand, does not think bitter melons look cute at all. 

 

Which is why he thinks —  if the servers up front are calling the guy young and handsome, he just has to be the opposite of that. Maybe J was really just an old man that liked to piss off restaurant chefs in his free time. He supposes only a retired old man with nothing else to do during the day would do something like this, complaining to a poor overworked chef like himself for just doing his job. He can imagine this old man, face all wrinkly from age, walking into the restaurant in an old-fashioned bucket hat and oversized brown slacks, doing a crossword puzzle at the table, and thinking to himself how he could amuse himself by complaining to the same chef as he did three days ago. Yeah, sounds about right.

 

_Sensitive tongue my ass_ , Kyungsoo thinks, _if you really didn’t like spice then why would you order curry?_

 

—

 

The next few notes aren’t much different.  

 

_The steamed eggs were a little watery today. I like my ratio 3:2 for water to egg._

 

_Mushrooms should be crispier. Are you overcrowding the pan?_

 

_Your plating is pretty, but I noticed it was just a little sloppier this time. Still, the taste was great though…you know what, never mind._

 

All signed with J’s signature messy handwriting. Kyungsoo accepts each new note with a sense of regular expectation now. They still irritate him, but with each message he feels like he’s learning a little more about J. He likes his food with a particular texture, preferring crunchiness and crumbly foods to mushier, softer ones. Light sophisticated palates to heavy, over-complicated cooking. Each new receipt he receives from the man is like a little mini one-sided conversation. Kyungsoo doesn’t ask questions, but J answers him anyways.  

 

J isn’t necessarily a picky eater — no matter what, the plate that comes back is always empty —  but he sure loves to specify what he likes. There’s no escaping the man’s opining on what he thought was great about the dishes Kyungsoo makes for him, and what he thought could be improved. It’s a little tiring to say the least, getting all this unsolicited feedback at the randomest times when he has piles of orders to worry about. Kyungsoo openly complains loudly how he has to deal with such a nuisance. Still, the others can’t help but notice how he’s started to save a stockpile of the little receipts in his locker in the back. He shouldn’t be finding these notes slightly endearing, but he does, even just a little bit; even if he won’t admit it. Perhaps it’s because it’s comforting, knowing that there’s someone out there who is genuinely invested in the food he makes. 

 

The servers, on the other hand, _love_  J. He’s a very generous tipper. Kyungsoo can admit that at the very least. The first few times he left twenty-five percent. Both this time and the last he doubled that, leaving a fifty percent tip, much to the ecstasy of all except for Kyungsoo. If the only casualty to that was the fact that Kyungsoo had to be the receiving end of this man’s weird messages on the back of the receipts, who were they to deny service to J? The other restaurant staff also seem to find it funny that Kyungsoo’s become so fixated on the enigmatic J, letting out fits of giggles whenever they see Kyungsoo noticeably pout at the sight of a new scrawled-on receipt being handed over to him.

 

One day, Kyungsoo decides to take a stand on his convictions. To take back his pride as a chef, gone are the days where he’s just gonna _accept_  the criticism J keeps giving him. 

 

“Kyungsoo, your future lover is here,” a voice pipes up, making Kyungsoo swerve his body to get the paper order. He snatches the piece of paper out of the server’s hand. Braised chicken and wine, with a side of root vegetable gratin. 

 

“He is not my future lover,” Kyungsoo seethes through clenched teeth, busily hurrying to prep the chicken. 

 

“Yeah, sure,” the server laughs, “With him writing you love letters every week about your food?”

 

“Where he complains about what I got wrong with the order?” Kyungsoo responds snappily, “Why he even requests I make his food every time is beyond me.”

 

“You two act like an old married couple, and you haven’t even talked,” the chef beside him notes, herself grinning widely at Kyungsoo’s annoyed look. “It sometimes feels like you even make small mistakes on purpose in your dishes, just to see if he can catch it, and write you a little note in return.”

 

“I do not act married to whoever that old man is,” Kyungsoo huffs.

 

“How many times do we have to tell you? He’s not old—“ 

 

Kyungsoo shushes the rest of them so he can focus. From now on, every order he gets from J has to be specifically catered, checking off all the boxes for what the man wants. 

 

See, two can play at this game. He’ll just have to make a meal that J can find no fault in.

 

—

 

In the next few weeks, Kyungsoo applies this rigorous method to every dish that J requests of him. By now, he has a pretty good working reference of the types of spices he likes, their ratios, and the pairings that he prefers. It’s a lot, but Kyungsoo has always been a little bit prideful of his ability to memorize long lists of things. It’s what got him into cooking after all, memorizing his mother’s recipes as a kid. He notices that the notes themselves become less denigrating, and now are far more full of praise. Kyungsoo is pleased at the thought of finally cracking the code with this tricky customer.

 

Each week, he now takes J with him on a culinary adventure. He had long since ordered every item off the menu, and now was the time to try dishes of Kyungsoo’s own creation. They were more like food experiments, really, like the one time Kyungsoo delved into molecular gastronomy and ended up serving a plate full of what looked like mini seafood jello’s. 

 

The note corresponding to that menu —   _Interesting, but I’m still left a little hungry. Gelatin doesn’t do much for me._ Well, that one was a bust. But the following times he’s a lot more successful with each coming week. He eagerly waits for the days J decides to patronize the restaurant. In the meantime, he doesn’t let the time spent cooking other people’s food go to waste either. He adds various new recipes onto the restaurant’s rotating lunch menu, testing their reception with their regular customers, too. 

 

One day, he finally thinks that he’s got the dish. _The_ dish. It’s the same lamb roast that first initiated their little note-based tryst, but this time with much less rosemary, and also served with three complementing dips. To be washed down with a glass of his favorite red wine. Simple, but every detail perfected. 

 

The platter goes out with the server, and Kyungsoo waits patiently for the response. It shouldn’t take too long. J usually lets him know if he approves within seconds of taking the first bite and tells the server, who tells the chef. He watches closely at the clock on the wall. Agonizingly, five minutes pass. He gets reprimanded by his manager for letting those precious minutes go by, when he should have been working on other dishes. Disgruntled, he gets back to work. 

 

When the server finally bursts in with the receipt forty-five minutes later, Kyungsoo’s heart is beating fast. The server never updated on how J responded initially to the food. Was it bad? Was it good? It certainly took a while for J to even finish his food. He immediately grabs at the flimsy piece of paper, and his heart drops when he sees that the back is empty. No note written. 

 

It couldn’t have been…that bad, could it, he thinks. No, no good dish would warrant such a response from J. He reprimands himself for thinking that he could even think such a thing, as if he knew the man that J was. They’d never even exchanged verbal words, after all. Perhaps it was self projection all along. Heck, maybe the dish was boring. After all, he had served it to him before, and perhaps this was the moment when J decided he was plenty satisfied enough by the food service at this restaurant. Now, on to bigger and better things. 

 

He’s left thinking about this and all the different scenarios this could have played out, before realizing that his greens are burning. His manager spots him and scolds him again, this time knocking him a little harshly on the head. All things considered, he should really just get back to cooking. 

 

The next day he doesn’t try to remember the incident, or think about J. Instead, he hyper focuses on the work in front of him, working at all the orders with brutal efficiency. He doesn’t even bat an eye at some of the strange choices some of the customers even make with their food selections. Normally one would wonder why someone would order a vegetarian version of buttery garlic prawns, but alas, his mind is on autopilot mode right now. 

 

His trance is only broken when he feels someone jerk his shoulders so that he’s turned around to face the center of the kitchen. 

 

“Kyungsoo! Pay attention. I called you, like, twice from across the kitchen.” It’s the female server, the one who teased Kyungsoo all those days before about his supposed secret admirer.

 

“O-Oh,” Kyungsoo says sheepishly, not realizing he’d been zoning out. “Sorry about that.”

 

“What am I going to do with you,” She sighs exasperatedly, now cupping his cheeks with her two hands. In this position, she could be mistaken for an older sister scolding her little brother for doing something foolish. “Anyway, I came in here to _tell_  you that you have a _customer_  who wants to meet the chef.”

 

Kyungsoo is bewildered, partly because he had never had the honor of someone asking to meet him in person for his food, and also partly because he practically can’t remember the last ten dishes he had just cooked. His hair was all greasy from the oils of the kitchen, and he could see food stains on all parts of his apron. He was, both literally and figuratively, a mess. 

 

He wipes his hands clean on a towel, and takes off his apron. Before heading out to the seating room, he briefly glimpses at his face and hair in the mirror outside the bathroom. He musses at his hair for a bit, at least for it to look human. One day he’ll have to figure out how to style it so it doesn’t stick out in all directions. When he decides that patting it down is the best he can do, he follows the female server to the table seating the person who wanted to meet him.

 

To his surprise — or perhaps not —  it’s a young man with neatly parted black hair, slightly sun-kissed skin, and dressed in light tan slacks and a pressed blue dress shirt.  He can’t help but notice how nice the man’s eyes look, even in the ambient lighting.  

 

“Hi,” the man says.

 

“Hi,” he says back. He knows he should be polite with customers, especially at a high-end restaurant such as theirs. But how else could one respond to such a simple greeting?

 

The man coughs. “Well, this is definitely more awkward than I expected,” he extends out his hand. “My name is Jongin Kim. You have fed me for probably more than two months now. But you probably know me as something else.”

 

Kyungsoo squints at the man once more, taken aback. He runs his eyes up and down the man again, making sure his eyes weren’t fooling him. 

 

“ _You’re_  J?” He finally lets out. He definitely wasn’t expecting him to be this handsome. The man, no, _Jongin_ , coughs once more. Kyungsoo notices his hand still hanging. Apparently he had just ignored it just now. He gives it a precautionary, polite shake. 

 

Jongin raises his brow. “Who did you think I was? What kind of person did you think J was?”

 

“I don’t know,” Kyungsoo says sheepishly. “You’re just…better looking than expected.” To which Jongin laughs out loud.

 

“I don’t wanna know what sort of image of me you pictured in your head then.” He tosses his head back, letting his black locks rise and fall with the motion over his face. “So? What’s your answer?” 

 

“I’m sorry, what? Did you ask me something?”

 

“On the check, did you not read it?” Jongin asks.

 

Kyungsoo hastily checks the past four receipts he received from the servers before. They’re all empty. 

 

“You didn’t write anything though,” he says, puzzled.

 

Jongin leans forward, grabbing the receipts from Kyungsoo’s hands, “Not on the back, it was the order _itself_.” He ruffles through them before he singles out a single one. “See, check the first letter of each— oh.”

 

Kyungsoo peers down to the print of the actual order, not quite understanding the gist of what Jongin was getting at. 

 

_(1) Italian seared Halibut (main)_

_Fresh Citrus  
_

_(2) Yorkshire pudding (main)_

_  
_

_(3) Lavender Fields (bar)_

 

“I..Y..L?” Kyungsoo lets the letters slip softly off of his tongue. “What is that supposed to mean?”

 

“I forgot,” Jongin groans, rubbing at his temples,“that food and drinks were separated on the receipt.”

 

“So,” Kyungsoo says, “you mean to say, you wanted it to spell out…I-L-Y?” He lets out an exaggerated gasp. "You _love_ —“

 

“No!” Jongin exclaims, startling the nearby diners in their vicinity. He pauses, noticing the attention he had unwittingly drawn to himself. “Sorry. You forgot the fresh citrus. It’s I-L-Y-F. Food. I like your food. Yeah.”

 

Kyungsoo cocks his head to the side, deciding that watching this man squirm from his half-baked plan failing was much too amusing. After all that he’d been through, it was fun to see the man before him bluster. Despite looking like _that_ , he sure did act like a clueless child when it came to being face-to-face with Kyungsoo. “No one would have guessed that from your receipt, Jongin.”

 

“Well, I know that _now,_ ” Jongin pouts. 

 

Kyungsoo suddenly feels a bit guilty for teasing the man. Backtracking, he clears his throat. “So, besides telling me in person, finally, that you like my food, is there anything else you wanted to say?”

 

“Actually, yes,” Jongin stands up in front of him now, rising so that Kyungsoo’s eyes can just barely meet the base of his neck. Wow, he smells good. Jongin smiles. “I’ve decided last night that I won’t let this opportunity go. Your food is so, so good. So, won’t you take the chance and be mine?”

 

The words fall on top of Kyungsoo like a brick. _This_ , certainly, was not what he was expecting. He takes a moment to recollect his thoughts, making sure he heard that right. Never mind the fact that he Jongin just gave him a confession in the form of a restaurant order’s receipt. “You mean, like be your personal chef?”

 

“No,” Jongin says, “I just want to be your boyfriend. If that’s alright with you.”

 

“But,” Kyungsoo intercedes, “you don’t know anything about me. You don’t even know my _name_.”

 

“But I know plenty of things about you now. I know you love cooking. That you’re a hard worker, and never step down to a challenge. I know you’re really nice-looking in real life too. I get why your co-workers always tease you now. It’s cause you’re so cute.” He says all of this with such earnesty, Kyungsoo can’t look away. “As for your name…” Jongin pulls out his phone from his pocket. “You can give that to me if you wanna exchange numbers.”

 

Kyungsoo is visibly flushing, and it feels like all eyes are on him now. Even if they aren’t, and all the other customers are just sitting around, minding their own business. It wouldn’t be fair to say that he _didn’t_  want to go out with the man in front of him. Tall and lean, with a cute nose. Exactly his type. But he doesn’t like how Jongin pulled the rug out from under him just like that. He wants to take back his sense of pride, even if Jongin didn’t maliciously intend to cause him this embarrassment .

 

“Okay…” Kyungsoo starts, “but on one condition.”

 

“And that is?”

 

He gets brave. Milk the man for what he’s worth, he thinks. “You have to take me to a Michelin star restaurant once a week from now on. If we go out.”

 

Jongin balks. “Seriously? Do I look like I’m made of money?”

 

“You’ve been coming to this four-dollar-sign-on-Yelp restaurant without any problem for two months straight, coming multiple times a week sometimes. And made me almost tear my hair out constantly trying to please your palate,” Kyungsoo huffs. “I’m sure your wallet can afford at least this much.”

 

“Okay, fine,” Jongin quips, “but I get to eat your homemade food for free then.”

 

“I don’t have any problem with that,” Kyungsoo says. He then motions for Jongin to hand him his phone. He pushes down at the ‘add new contact’ icon, and enters his name and digits slowly before handing the phone back gingerly to its owner. 

 

Jongin grins down widely at the name written down on the screen.

 

“Kyungsoo. What a nice name that is. Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo,” he recites the syllables like a mantra, so that he won’t forget. Not that he ever will.

 

“Did you have another name for me in your head this whole time?” Kyungsoo asks.

 

“Not really. I just pictured you as this little grumpy chef in the back.”

 

“Whatever. Okay. I gotta get back to work,” Kyungsoo says, seeing how his manager is giving him the dirty look from all the way in the back.

 

“Okay,” Jongin waves to him goodbye. He looks especially radiant with that grin on his face. “Thanks for the meal, Kyungsoo.” He then silently makes a phone gesture with his hand as he mouths to the chef — _Call me later?_

_  
_

Kyungsoo nods resolutely as he rushes to the back to put his apron back on. They taught him a lot in culinary school, but the one thing they emphasized the most was how the day-to-day is never something to just be expected. He smiles. So this is what they meant when they say the culinary world is full of surprises.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> happy valentine's day! thanks for reading.


End file.
